Thursday, December 1, 2016

And The Ban Hammer Continues...

One of the risks of reselling are bans. Resellers tend to take advantage of stacking promotions, portals and free shipping that are readily available for anyone but aren't used to the same extent as crazy people like us.

When you are trying to grow your business, it can be tempting to continue to increase your purchase size to meet the demand of customers. I was tempted and it didn't end well for me.

2015 Bans

Last year I was banned by Best Buy (I spent over $30,000 there in 2015), Toys R Us (I was only banned from getting their rewards,but I can still order), Bon-Ton (very quick ban trigger). Maybe others I'm forgetting about.

2016 Bans

The past few months have been very fruitful for bans.

It started with Kohl's. That wasn't fun but not so bad. I did a bit of reselling from there but everyone else does too so competition comes in and crushes the price on most items. Now, they autocancel my orders. Kohl's let one order go through recently but then the next two were flagged again. Oh well.

Then came Walmart, which is impressive. I didn't actually know that was possible. I can't even enter credit card information.

Next was the dagger to the heart. Target. Autocancel orders immediately. Not only was that one of my favorite stores to resell from, but my wife shops there too :( That was not a fun conversation with her.

So, for your reselling business sake and, more importantly, for your spouses sake, don't get yourself banned. It's just not worth it.

Slow and stead wins the race. If only I listened to my own advice.

Thankfully I still have Staples (for now). The one good thing is that this gives me even more incentive to work harder finding manufacturers and distributors . I will miss the portals though.